


Floral And Fading

by naivety-stupidity (OhTheTerrifyingRarityOfTruth)



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Happy Ending, Non-Binary Fun Ghoul, Non-Binary Party Poison, Other, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Pining, She/Her Pronouns for Fun Ghoul, They/Them Pronouns for Party Poison (Danger Days), Trans Kobra Kid (Danger Days), also Ghoul has ADHD but it's not explicitly mentioned, and proper binding technique!, because I am trans and I understand the importance of learning good binding, because they're cute as fuck and they deserve it, but they get together in the end!!, even though it's the catalyst for like the entire plot, it's literally just 1.7k words of pining, like a lot of pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26196154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhTheTerrifyingRarityOfTruth/pseuds/naivety-stupidity
Summary: Kobra pines, builds a blanket fort, and unties a ribbon. In the end it all comes back to Ghoul.
Relationships: (mentioned) - Relationship, Fun Ghoul/Kobra Kid (Danger Days), Jet Star/Party Poison/Show Pony (Danger Days)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Floral And Fading

**Author's Note:**

> Little gift for one of my favourite people ever ever ever, because I promised them some funkobra fluff, and what's fluffier than two trans kids building a blanket fort after some mutual pining? (love you dude)  
> Title from Floral And Fading by Pierce The Veil because it makes me uwu

Ghoul didn’t sleep often. Not at night, at least. Nights were weird times, when some killjoys went to wild parties and some disappeared for differing lengths of time ranging from an hour to forever. When the zone’s children were asleep or close to it and the dracs were settled in their strongholds, because white was a far too obvious colour in the dark and killjoys were drunk and reckless. When the lobby was bustling with illegality that BLI mostly ignored and the desert birds were silent.

Ghoul’s nights, when not spent dragging Party home from another Mad Gear concert, were filled with clay and paint and balls of twine, wrapped in a blanket in a booth in the diner. She sat for hours on end, moulding and painting and threading, making rather than destroying, always working with her hands. It was calming, and Ghoul was always peaceful while she worked. Occasionally she would hum, or sing songs that had been on the radio that day while she worked, but she wouldn’t speak until she finished, which was often when the sun rose the next morning.

On this particular evening, Jet, Party and the girl had been caught by a sandstorm and were sheltering at the radio station for the night, and Ghoul was sat at one of the tables by the window to catch the dying sunlight. She held a paintbrush in one hand and a small unfired clay bead in the other, and scattered across the table were more beads, both uncoloured and painted with tiny symbols and bright colours. A solar charged lamp stood at one end, unlit for the moment, but ready to be turned on as soon as the last of the sun’s rays dipped below the horizon. It was one of Ghoul’s favourite possessions and was always stood, loyal, on her favourite table specifically for nights like these. The beads she made would be strung onto necklaces and bracelets, sold at the desert markets she hadn’t be barred from or given to killjoys Ghoul especially liked. The girl had at one point be given so many that you couldn’t see the skin of her arms for how many bracelets she wore. But the jewellery was really only a by-product of a strategy to manage Ghoul’s seemingly boundless energy, so she could sleep in the mornings and wouldn’t charge into the city for no other reason than that she wanted to feel something. For now though, she sat working in the diner and the crises were averted for a little while longer.

Kobra slipped into the seat opposite her, content to just watch her work. He had taken his binder off and was wearing a baggy purple shirt that had probably at one point belonged to Jet, but was now in constant use by both Party and their brother. Kobra loved watching Ghoul work; he could stare openly at her when she was so absorbed in her craft without risking being caught and having to explain himself, and her dedication was beautiful to watch. Her fingers were speckled with blue and purple paint, and stripes covered the backs of her hands from where she tested colours. The paint wouldn’t be coming off for at least a week, and by then she would have painted over them with new colours, so she had a perpetual ever shifting rainbow across her knuckles that the girl loved to stare at on long car rides. Her eyes sparkled in the lamplight, green and brown, like olivine and opal lit up with desert starlight. Kobra blinked, startled at the comparison. It sounded like something Party would write about Jet in their ‘secret’ notebooks that he and Ghoul would pull out to laugh about sometimes, not a platonic description of your platonic best friend’s very platonically stunning eyes. Even if they were the prettiest eyes in the desert. Especially when her hair was hanging like that around her head. She had tied her hair up into a bun that day with a pink ribbon the girl had given her, but it was late and strands had slipped out and were now falling around her face. She was continually brushing them behind her ears, only for them to fall out again and frame her face in dark clouds. Her hair was always soft, and Kobra fought the urge to reach over and run his hands through it, hold it back for as she worked so he had an excuse to be close. If he had her hair in his fingers, he could sit behind her, maybe lean over and brush soft kisses to her forehead from above. But if he was sat next to her, maybe he could press his lips to her cheek and hold her hand while she painted. But none of these thoughts were ones he should be thinking about, and he wasn’t sure Ghoul would appreciate him thinking about kissing her or hugging her or sharing a bed with her, and oh the sharing a bed idea was new, but the more he thought about it the more he wanted to curl up with Ghoul and fall asleep to the sounds of her soft breathing and the desert owls.

He was so distracted trying to push down his thoughts about the logistics of kissing Ghoul that he didn’t realise she had stopped working and had put her paintbrush down.

“K, you can stop staring, I’m not going to vanish if you blink.”

Kobra jumped and quickly began making excuses, stuttering, “No, I wasn’t staring, I was just... I was... You were...”

Ghoul put her hand on his and he stopped abruptly. She had the same callouses that they all did from their time in the desert, but clay had dried on her hands while she had been working, a cool contrast to the warmth radiating from her skin. Kobra would be able to tell Ghoul’s hands just from the feeling any day of the week, because the topography was so distinctive and her touch held a mirror to her personality; bright and bouncy and soft and strong. Kobra could watch her hands for hours. But now she was looking intently at his face, looking at the scar next to his eye from when Party had tackled him as kids, at the childish curve of his nose that puberty still hadn’t sharpened, at the cheekbones that Jet had claimed could cut like a knife. She was watching the startling sapphire blue of his irises as he tried not to meet her eyes, embarrassment and nervousness colouring his cheeks. He looked down, suddenly very interested in the jewellery Ghoul had been painting. He picked up one bead, bright yellow, painted with several small purple birds, or bats, or snakes.

“Hey Ghoul, who are you making this one for?” He mumbled, trying to change the subject.

Ghoul was not deterred. “Dude, if you’re going to kiss me, you’d better do it now before your sibling is around to tease you.”

“Wha- no, no no, I don’t want to kiss you, that’s weird, you’re my best friend, I wouldn’t haha, but it’d be funny if that happened right? But no I don’t think about kissing you or anything like that because it would be weird. Yeah.”

Ghoul rolled her eyes and leaned over the table, grabbing Kobra’s jaw between the same calloused hands as she did so. She sat on the table in front of him, and _oh fuck when did she get that flexible_ , then brought his face so close to hers that they both went cross-eyed and said, “Kobra, I love you, but you are a dumbass and if you are not going to make out with me right the fuck now, then I am going to have to take matters into my own hands.”

And then she was leaning down and thank the Witch and Destroya and every other deity there was that this was finally happening, because Kobra was so sick of being in denial and Ghoul was incredibly pretty and where did she learn to do that thing with her tongue that made him weak in the knees? He pulled back a little to catch his breath, and she was still right there smiling at him and breathing just as hard as he was. They grinned at each other, lips starting to darken, and laughed softly before leaning in again. Ghoul slipped down off of the table into Kobra’s lap, not letting go of his face, and Kobra really liked it like this, because now Ghoul, who was a comfortable weight on his thighs, could tip her head back to kiss him and he could pull his fingers through her hair. And because he could now, he pulled out the faded coral ribbon in her bun, freeing every strand that had been so desperately trying to escape over the course of the night. Most of it stayed in his hands, but some fell round her face again, tickling his nose and forcing him backwards so he could sneeze.

Ghoul grinned at him from where she was perched in his lap, forgotten specks of red paint on her nose and hazel eyes twinkling playfully in two different colours.

“Blanket fort?”

“Blanket fort.” Kobra nodded.

(They ran laughing between the rooms, stealing kisses as they sneaked into Jet’s room, as they pulled sheets off of Party’s bed, as they dragged chairs into a circle and tucked stolen pillows between wobbly chair legs. They were still giggling, albeit sleepily, when they settled down surrounded by blankets and traded made up ghost stories. They were still smiling when they fell asleep against each other atop borrowed blankets in a world of their own making. And Ghoul slept that night.)

The next morning, Kobra and Ghoul were still curled up with one another when Party trampled in the door, gesticulating wildly as they loudly recounted their night to a tired Jet who was carrying the girl. They stopped in their tracks when they saw the fragile pile of blankets spread across the backs of chairs in the middle of the floor and their sleeping brother with his arms round Ghoul and his head tucked into her shoulder. Party made eye contact at Ghoul, who was half-awake and stroking her hands through Kobra’s hair. She shook her head at them and raised her free hand to her lips, gesturing at them to be quiet. They raised their eyebrow and gestured pointedly at Kobra’s arms around Ghoul’s waist, and she had the good sense to blush hotly and look away. Party grinned, as did Jet beside them, and walked away to their bed, fully intending to tease Kobra when they woke up.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!! For more of my danger days bs you can follow me on tumblr (@/novocaine-reverie and @/naivety-stupidity)


End file.
